critical evaluations of his work notably papers by Rodney Benson 4 Rogers Brubaker Nick
Crossley and John Myles. Indeed it is the 1985 article by Rogers Brubaker that can truly be
said to have served as one of the best introductions to Bourdieüs thought for the American
social scienti?c public. It is for this reason that we include it in the present collection.
Intellectual origins & orientations We begin by providing an overview of Bourdieüs life as a
scholar and a public intellectual. The numerous obituaries and memorial tributes that have
appeared following Bourdieüs untimely death have revealed something of his life and career but
few have stressed the intersection of his social origins career trajectory and public
intellectual life with the changing political and social context of France. This is precisely
what David Swartz¿s ¿In memoriam¿ attempts to accomplish. In it he emphasizes the coincidence
of Bourdieüs young and later adulthood with the period of decolonization the May 1968 French
university crisis the opening up of France to privatization of many domains previously
entrusted to the state (l¿état providence) and most threatening to post-World War II reforms
the emergence of globalization as the hegemonic structure of the 21st century. An orienting
theme throughout Bourdieüs work warns against the partial and fractured views of social reality
generated by the fundamental subject object dichotomy that has plagued social science from its
very beginning.
